I reserved a ticket on the July 27th bus from Gatwick Airport to Derby. The bus turned up at the airport on time, but right from the start, the driver was aggressive, seemed in a very bad mood, and told myself and the other 3 passengers something about Victoria that we could not understand (as he wasn't a native speaker of English).

The bus set off through central London, which I know well from having lived there, and I recognised we were going to Victoris Bus Station. I assumed we were making an extra stop to pick up passengers, but no - instead, the driver unloaded our luggage in a car park, pointed in the direction of the bus station, told us to go there for another bus, then drove off! He literally abandoned us in a car park!

Myself and the other passengers (a lady from Nigeria and her two kids) made our way to the bus station, which though only a 5-minute walk, was exhausting in the heat and with a lot of luggage. The station was packed, and when we went to the Megabus office, the man there explained that due to demonstrations in central London, many of the roads were closed and all of the traffic in and out of London was severely disrupted. In the end, we had to wait hours in the bus station until they could get us onto another bus.

Obviously, the traffic problem wasn't the fault of Megabus, and both the man in the ticket office and the driver of the second bus (when it finally came) were both very nice. The issue I have is with the first bus driver who was so rude, and whoever it was (either that driver or his manager) who decided that instead of informing us of the full situation with the traffic disruption when the bus arrived at Gatwick Airport, we would be taken to and dumped at Victoria Bus Station without explanation. If the situation had been explained while we were still at Gatwick, I wouldn't have boarded the bus - instead, I'd have checked into the hotel at Gatwick North Terminal and traveled up to Derby the next day, as by that time I'd already been traveling for 33 hours straight without sleep and was completely exhausted. By not informing us of the situation, the driver deprived us of the ability to make that choice. I'm 56 and not in good health at the best of times. As it was, I felt so ill after being dumped at Victoria Bus Station that I honestly felt like I was going to collapse. The heat was unbearable because for security reasons, they kept all the doors closed unless a bus was actually boarding, and it was so crowded that there was nowhere to sit.

I won't be using Megabus again. I don't want to risk repeating that nightmare trip.

Edit: I forgot to add that even though I paid extra to book a front row seat, the driver told me I couldn't sit there - he had all his belongings strewn over the front two rows and made us sit in the middle. It seems from the reviews that a lot of passengers have had the same problem - they paid extra to reserve seats, then didn't get the seat they paid for.